Between the Covers welcomes local author, Dan Berne. His debut novel, The Gods of Second Chances, is the first novel release from local publisher, Forest Avenue Press.

The Gods of Second Chances is the story of a man overwhelmed by things beyond his control--a granddaughter on the verge of adolescence, a daughter returning from prison rehab, a frivolous lawsuit, and falling for the one woman he can't have--all the while trying to fish his living out of a fickle ocean in the mercurial weather of Southeast Alaska. It's no wonder one god isn't enough for him--Leigh Anne Kranz

"The most striking dystopian novels sound an alarm, focus our attention and even change the language. The Handmaid’s Tale crystallized our fears about reproductive control; Fahrenheit 451 still flames discussions of censorship; and 1984 is the lens through which we watch the Obama administration watching us. Chang-rae Lee’s unsettling new novel, On Such a Full Sea, arrives from that same frightening realm of total oversight and pinched individuality. . . . A brilliant, deeply unnerving portrait."—The Washington Post

The guest is Harriet Scott Chessman, whose new novel is The Beauty of Ordinary Things, released this winter by Atelier26.

Chessman is the author of Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper and Someone Not Really Her Mother.

The Beauty of Ordinary Things, set in the early 1970s, concerns the unlikely love and friendship between a young Vietnam veteran and a Benedictine nun. The renowned Ron Hansen calls The Beauty of Ordinary Things “a soulful, tender, affecting novel, with complex, searching, sympathetic characters whose situations and plights one deeply cares about."

Host Kathleen Stephenson interviews Rabih Alameddine, one of the Middle East's most celebrated voices, about his new novel "An Unnecessary Woman."

Rabih Alameddine follows his bestseller, The Hakawati, with "An Unnecessary Woman," a novel that explores the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut’s beauties and horrors along the way.

Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Doug Erickson, Lewis & Clark College Head of Special Collections and College Archivist and Director of Oregon Poetic Voices, about the life and work of the late Oregon poet William Stafford. 2014 is the Centennial of Stafford's birth, and there are events in Oregon and around the world to mark the Centennial.

In this Part 2 of Between the Covers we interview a group of people involved in "I Am Not a Poet," a new book of poetry being published by Street Roots, Portland's flagship publication addressing homelessness and poverty since 1998. The guests are Cole Merkel, SR Vendor Coordinator and leadier of the weekly Street Roots creative writing workshop; Vinnie Kinsella who is currently a volunteer copywriter for Street Roots; and contributing poet and homeless advocate Leo Rhodes.

“A memoir for the ages . . . I spat laughter on the first page and closed the last with wet eyes. Unputdownable in the day and a half I spent reading it, Little Failure is a window into immigrant agony and ambition, Jewish angst, and anybody’s desperate need for a tribe.”—Mary Karr, bestselling author of Lit and The Liars’ Club

Host Jennifer Kemp speaks with Mitchell S. Jackson about his novel The Residue Years. In this autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in Portland in the ’90s under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem.

Interview with Mona Golabek, author of "The Children of Willesden Lane"

Mona Golabek, author of "The Children of Willesden Lane," an account of her mother's ordeal during World War II, is also a concert pianist and performer. She discusses her book, and the play created from her book, "The Pianist of Willesden Lane" with host Richard Wolinsky.

Caroline Miller has published numerous short stories in publications as diverse as Children’s Digest, Grit and Tales of the Talisman. Her short story, “Under the Bridge and Beneath the Moon,’ was dramatized for radio in Oregon and Washington. Her novel, Heart Land was published in 2009 by Schiel & Denver, and Gothic Spring was also published in 2009 by Asylett press.

Caroline is also a silk painter whose pieces have been sold in local galleries in the Portland area. Her art work has also been included in a number of juried exhibits. She taught English at both the high school and university levels, headed a Labor union for five years and successfully ran for public office three times. She holds a B.A. and M.A.T. degree from Reed College and an M.A. in Literature from Northern Arizona University where she graduated with honors. Ms. Miller lived for two years in England and two years in what is now called Zimbabwe.

Host Cecil Prescod speaks with Thomas Chatterton Williams about his memoir, LOSING MY COOL: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture. In the book Williams describes how he managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles--"keeping it real" in his friends' eyes and studying for the SATs under his father's strict tutelage. Pappy grew up in the segregated South and hid in closets so he could read Aesop and Plato. He envisioned for his son a lot in life greater than his own, and encouraged Williams to read and educate himself, and to embrace the opportunities that had not been available to Pappy's generation. As college approached and the stakes of the thug lifestyle escalated, the disparity between Williams' street life and home life threatened to undo him. Ultimately, Williams would have to decide between hip-hop and his future.

Thomas Chatterton Williams holds a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Georgetown University and a Master’s degree from the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. In 2007, he wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Yes, Blame Hip-Hop” for the Washington Post which generated a record-breaking number of comments. He writes for the literary magazine n+1 and currently lives in Brooklyn.

Host Ed Goldberg interviews Lauie Notaro, author of Spooky Little Girl, a funny novel about a woman whose life changes after she is killed by a bus.

Laurie Notaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. She packed her bags for Eugene, Oregon, once she realized that since she was past thirty, her mother could no longer report her as a teenage runaway. She is the author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody, We Thought You’d Be Prettier, and An Idiot Girl’s Christmas.

Host Bruce Silverman speaks with Roberta Gratz, author of "The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs." Urban critic and journalist Roberta Brandes Gratz argues that New York City regenerated itself because of the waning power of Robert Moses. His decline in the late 1960s and the drying up of big government funding for urban renewal projects allowed New York to organically regenerate according to the precepts defined by Jane Jacobs in her classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and in contradiction to Moses's urban philosophy.

Host Ed Goldberg speaks with Jimmy McDonough, author of Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen, a biography of the country music diva.

Jimmy McDonough’s biography of Neil Young, Shakey, was a critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller. He has also written biographies of Russ Meyer and Andy Milligan, and has written for publications including The Village Voice and Variety. He lives in Portland.

Host Ed Goldberg interviews Glen David Gold, author of Sunnyside, a historical novel set during World War I. It features Charlie Chaplin and Rin Tin Tin. Glen David Gold is the author of the best seller Carter Beats the Devil.

Kathleen Stephenson speaks with guest Bill Morgan, author of The Typewriter is Holy: The Complete Uncensored History of the Beat Generation, which explores the enduring revolutionary appeal of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and WilliamS. Burroughs and brings to light lesser known Beat artists like Alan Ansen and Joanne Kyger. Morgan is the author and editor of more than a dozen books about the Beat writers.

Comments

I've read the book twice and rather hoped to hear the program that the author spoke on the book. But that page was not available on your site. Anyway, I loved the book. I thought it was an exciting dose of history. Stoner brought the Portland of 1900 to life. There was intrigue that kept my interest throughout the book.